"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" Miscellaneous Informational Vocabulary
Terms
undefined, object
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- bolls
- seed pods, flax, or in this case, cotton
- traipsing
- walking purposelessly
- akimbo
- with the hands on the hips and the elbows turned out
- sharecropping
- system in which a tenant farmer gives a share of the crops as rent
- loitering
- standing around idly; lingering without purpose
- clabber milk
- sour milk
- belfry
- tower or steeple housing a bell
- bridge
- to cross over (as if on a bridge)
- Reconstruction
- the period after the Civil War (1865-1877), when the southern states were reorganzied and re-established in the Union
- red-neck
- a member of the white laboring class in the rural South {a derogatory term)
- tawny
- lighy brown to brownish orange
- switch
- thin rod, stick or twig used for whipping
- compound
- a group of buildings
- Uncle Tomming
- a black's showing humiliating respectfulness toward whites )after Uncle Tom, the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin"
- ginned
- removed seeds from cotton by using machine called a gin
- interminable
- seemingly without end; drawn out unreasonably
- collateral
- property used to guarantee a loan
- burning
- an act of deliberately setting fire to another's person or property; in this case, a crime perpretrated by whites against blacks
- shantytown
- a town or part of town with run-down huts or cabins
- ashen
- the color of ashes
- persnickety
- demanding strict attention to detail; fussy
- towheaded
- having white-blond hair
- despondently
- with feeling of despair or dejection
- scoffed
- mocked; scorned
- en masse
- all together, as one body
- knell
- the sounding of a bell as a signal
- ebony
- black; the color of ebony wood
- clinched
- held together tightly, as a fist or jaw
- condoned
- forgave; overlooked a wrong
- chignon
-
a roll or knot of hair at the back of the head or nape of the neck
- cauldron
- large kettle
- tarpaulin
- a waterproof cover
- fleeted
- passed swiftly
- bootleg
- illegal
- chiffonier
- high chest of drawers
- crescendo
- a gradual increase in volume or intensity
- verandas
- roofed porches along the outsides of buildings
- Mercantile
- having to do with trade or merchants; here specifically to the store Barnett's Mercantile
- cockatoo
- a kind of parrot